The horror movie “The Possession” took the top slot at the box office for a weekend that is shaping up to be the weakest of the entire year so far.

The Lionsgate movie earned $9.5 million according to early figures from Hollywood.com, to lead all films for the second straight week. Final figures are due out Monday.

According to Hollywood.com this weekend was the lowest-grossing overall weekend of 2012 (with an expected $65 million to $68 million for the entire weekend) and one of the lowest-grossing weekends of the past decade.

“Lawless” from the Weinstein Co. placed second with $6 million. “The Words” (CBS Films) was third with $5 million.

The low-grossing weekend “was the result of no solid newcomer to bolster the numbers and thus a worse-than-usual post Labor Day weekend slowdown was the result,” said Paul Dergarabedian, President of the Box-office Division of Hollywood.com, in an email.

[This article and the its headline have been updated from a previous version.]

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